Multilingual disaster information system: Information delivery using graphic text for mobile phones

Abstract

A multilingual disaster information system (MLDI) has been developed to overcome the language barrier during times of natural disaster. MLDI is a web-based system that includes templates in nine languages so that translated texts can be made available immediately. Mobile phone e-mail with graphic text is a useful tool for delivering multilingual disaster information. The visibility of graphic text on mobile phones was measured and found to be equivalent to the built-in font. However, visibility deteriorates as the character size becomes smaller, especially, on displays with poor resolution. This article also discusses the necessity of multilingual information and measures for a safe and barrierfree society.